H.B. net recovery nonprofit gets grant from TV's Bob Barker

HUNTINGTON BEACH – The price for recovering derelict fishing gear from the sea was right for Bob Barker, who gave a $150,000 grant to the all-volunteer Ocean Defenders Alliance.

The donation is a hefty catch for the 10-year-old Huntington Beach-based nonprofit, one of two programs in the state working to clean the ocean floor of debris that can kill wildlife from coral to dolphins, and which is a danger to divers as well.

Barker, former "The Price is Right" TV game show host, said he was pleased to be able to help, and that'd he'd give more in the future.

"I have read about animals, whales, sea lions, dolphins that have become entangled and I've read how people have gone down and helped them, but I've never helped an organization that was actually devoting itself to do it," Barker said.

ODA founder and director Kurt Lieber said he was ecstatic about the donation, which was almost 10 times larger than ODA's previous largest donation and will go to buying a more efficient, better-equipped boat.

"It definitely puts us in another league," said Lieber, a Huntington Beach resident.

ODA's current boat, the Clearwater, is a decommissioned Canadian Coast Guard vessel donated by another marine nonprofit, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, that's also funded by Barker. The Clearwater is too small to bunk more than a couple of volunteers or store food for them, meaning trips can't go overnight and the boat wastes gas going back to port.

Lieber said the group is looking to buy a used sport-fishing boat with a large deck and galley. He said it would upgrade to better sonar that can take some guesswork out of locating dive sites and an air compressor which can fill some of the divers' breathing tanks.

That ODA can use Barker's name is rare, according to the director of Barker's DJ&T Foundation, Nancy Burnet. Barker supports groups that spay and neuter animals, his cause célèbre as "The Price is Right" host, but grassroots grantees like ODA are likelier to get that publicity boost.

"This is an ongoing, extreme expense but it benefits not only all the creatures who are at the mercy of people who are sometimes not very ethical, but everything else in the ocean we should all care about," Burnet said. "I hope people will consider this organization and contribute."

Barker pointed to Lieber as one factor that stood out about ODA.

"The impressive thing about this Captain Lieber is that he has put together a group of volunteers," he said. "Many organizations do that, but volunteers come and volunteers go... . He's kept enough there to be a very good production over the last decade, and there aren't many people who can do that."